Background and Objectives: In the past studies, it was reported that vertigo was accompanied by sudden deafness patients from 25% to 47% and it increased to 56% when electronystagmography was used. They also reported that when sudden deafness patients showed vertigo symptom. The initial hearing losses were severe and their prognoses were poor. But they divided the sudden deafness patients simply by whether vertigo existed, not considering the extent of hearing loss. So we compared the prognosis between the sudden deafness patients showing the same level of hearing loss.
Materials and Method: We sampled 157 sudden deafness patients (Feb 1999 - Mar 2002). Of these, 17 patients with acute vertigo (group A) and 17 control patients without vertigo (group B) having the same level of mean air conduction as group A were selected.
Results: Group A showed frequent flat form of audiogram, poor response to treatment regardless of the age than group B.
Conclusion: In sudden deafness patients, objectively proven acute vertigo symptom is a prognostic factor of hearing recovery.